It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single raider in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a fish. Well, not just one fish. Usually 5-20 fish, to be precise. And that’s where us auction house trolls come into play!

My new virtual market has taken off, helped by the release of the new arena season and the frost wing of ICC. As I mentioned before, the bread and butter of my business is basic consumables — ore, cloth, food, herbs, enchanting mats. I’ve gotten better about buying in bulk when the prices take a downturn, and having faith that they’ll pick up again in another week or two.

Having this extra gold liquidity, though, means I can also dabble in more expensive items. Right now my auctions include epic recipes, pricey gem cuts, and lots of level 80 blues, which sell better than anticipated. Having patience and a good sense of the market helps a lot when laying out this kind of gold, as well as lots of experience with the game. It also means that I can jump on extra good deals I see in trade channel, such as the person selling 40 stacks of Lichbloom at a deeply discounted price. What am I going to do with 40 stacks of Lichbloom? I.. um.. did I mention it was really cheap? No more questions!

I’ve also learned what items I will not flip, whether it’s out of financial or moral concerns. I know people make a pretty good WoW living selling vendor items at exorbitant prices, but I turn up my nose at a lot of that business. And I refuse to do that gross thing suggested by another blog where you post 100 arrows at the same price at 1000 and then snicker when someone buys them (or similar methods). I will relist vendor items I come across with a little “convenience fee” — a good example is the cooking recipes sold by that dude waaaaaaaay down in the corner of Westfall — but I roll my eyes when I see Refreshing Spring Water for 20 gold a piece.

Now I have the not-unpleasant task of deciding what, if anything, I want to buy with some of this gold! I’ve already picked up a Leaping Hatchling and Orb of Deception at bargain basement prices (one benefit of stalking the Auction House), and funded getting my alts close to max level crafting and riding skills. I’ve decided against a motorcycle, I think. They’re awfully cool, but just don’t fit into whatever limited RP vision I have for Liore. Perhaps a passenger mammoth? Eh…

What I really want is a giant chicken mount, so I can call it Chicken Boo. (”It’s a chicken, I tell ya! A giant chicken!”)

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An exciting Cats management secret: If you want to join my guild, don’t have a character name that starts with X. When I set up our loot tracking module for the website, years ago, I cheerfully hard coded in a special setting for ex-members which I cleverly denoted by putting ‘X’ in front of their name.

Looking at it this weekend, while working on another part of the site, I realized that I am not to be trusted with 2am application design. I’m not sorry enough to fix it though, so just change your character name, okay? Thanks.

PS: Looking for a bear or DK tank!

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Random quests/dailies, silly

Well, while the servers are down I finally have the spare time to write something resembling a post! It’s not really a post, though. Instead, it’s a … todo list!

Finish levelling professions on Lunedi
Thanks to this guide and some mat donations from a guildie, I got Lunedi’s mining and jewelcrafting up over 400 this weekend. She’s just starting to mine saronite from Sholazar Basin, and will soon be fighting it out with everyone else for titanium, which I can prospect for blue gems to level JC!

Organize daily profession stuff
Continuing my gold-making plans from last week, I’m trying to make better use of my professions. Liore has an epic gem transmute each day that I should take advantage of, plus unlimited meta gems. Lunedi should do the JC daily every day, and make icy prisms when I get to that point. I have a level 70 tailor/enchanter who should really get her shatters and specialty cloth cooldown timers sorted. And on that idea..

Switch Liore to Transmute Spec
Liore has been Potion Spec since the beginning of time. Back in the day, being able to make my own mana potions was extremely cost efficient. It’s still pretty handy for the first few months of any new expansion, but overall I’d be better suited by being able to proc extra transmutes.

One Light In The Darkness (10s)
Both me and another healer just need this achievement to get our Ulduar drakes. I have a timer up to the Keepers saved — ask for help with this from the guild!

Get Exalted with Keepers of Time
Find some poor suck– um, helper to run Heroic Black Morass a few times. How am I just short of exalted with KoT, anyway? It feels like I ran BM a million, billion times to help people get keyed for Karazhan.

Get the Perky Pug on Liore!
Oof. While the LFG system was top of my daily priorities when it debuted, I admit I have been slacking a bit as of late. It’s also really tempting to just run with guildies instead of puggies, but that does not get me any closer to an adorable doggy of my own! Just 19 more random people to go…

Send mats from Guild Vault for flasks
Find a nice elixir master.

Repost all auctions on Friday morning
I’m going away for the weekend, so I’m listing everything my banker owns on Friday morning on a 48-hour timer. Let’s see how much gold I’ve REALLY made with this AH mogul thing.

Evaluate new recruit
Check the logs tomorrow morning.

Read up on new ICC bosses, kill Putricide
Argh, Putricide! 16% last week.. assuming people are on the ball, I think we’d have it… except our Abom driver is away for work this week. Figure out if we should wait until Monday (traditionally a weak roster night), or power through with a better roster but novice abom driver on Thursday.

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Random ICC, LFG, quests/dailies, silly

So this week I’ve been between contracts (this is a civilized way of saying unemployed), and as usual my restless brain came up with a fiddly, time-intensive, and totally useless project: seriously playing the Auction House.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be the rightful winner of a Battered Hilt during a LFG random. Everyone in the party froze when it dropped, and after giving each other the stinkeye we all agreed to roll need. Usually I am quite strict about need being “need this for an upgrade on this character right now” (and I had passed on another Hilt the week before during a guild run for that very reason), but in all honesty on a pug who doesn’t NEED 20,000g? I need to not have to farm again for a very long time, thanks.

So anyway, all of the above means that this week I have lots of spare time and lots of spare gold. My mission was clear: become an Auction House mogul. Buy low, sell high, have a big money fight with all my friends. This may surprise you, dear reader, but after some effort I learned that apparently buying low and selling high is trickier than you might think! I know! Go fig!

I can’t really give ‘helpful gold-making tips’, because I am a very unreliable source. I will say that I started out with 1000g in seed money and had 750g in profitable auctions close yesterday (gross, not net). However, I turned right around and sunk everything back into inventory so I can’t really tell how well I’m doing overall. I can say that I’ve had a lot of fun so far, which I suppose is the point.

The constant, stable income is in level 80 crafting professions. Jewelcrafting and Inscription seem to basically be licenses to print money with a little research, and I have a level 70 tailorbot who has been quite profitable. Enchanting is less awesome with the LFG system, but still good. Alchemists should be using their epic gem transmute every day. Keep an eye on mat prices, and stock up when they’re low.

The alternative to making money with your professions is flipping. This works best, I think, when you are available to log in during weird hours, such as late at night or early in the morning. With mods you can search for auctions that are about to end and slip in a bid. Items such as herbs, ore, and enchanting mats sell constantly, hundreds each day on each server, so you cannot go wrong by picking some up for under market value. It WILL sell eventually. In truth, the flipper’s motto is “buy low and sell normal”. Go for the sure thing, and go for it in bulk.

And don’t undervalue bidding on stuff! It’s not sexy or flashy or exciting, and it doesn’t appeal to my need for immediate gratification, but holy cow you can find some good prices. Be patient, bid on all those profession goods with the 1s start, and a small percentage of them will show up in your mailbox. There is something really satisfying about having a 50s bid go through and then turning around and selling the item back for 30g. It seems sneaky. I like it!

The big lesson I have to learn now is how to sit on inventory. I don’t have to flip everything immediately, and in fact would benefit in many ways by waiting until the price on, say, Lichbloom goes back up to its usual ridiculous number. I suspect I’ll get better at this over time as I learn the ways of the marketplace.

I will keep y’all updated as to my success. Oh, and Uldumites… go buy a bunch of stuff off the AH, okay? Thanks.

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Random rants, silly

Look, I try to be nice and not complain about stuff too much, particularly stuff on the PTR. But the Tier 9 graphics.. in all sincerity, this pushes me to flip out in despair more than anything else I’ve ever seen. All armor classes look alike.

I am going to look just like a mage and a warlock. In our raid of nine different classes, there will be 4 different armor designs. Is this supposed to make us excited? I remember getting my Prophecy Robes in MC and feeling like a “real priest”. Even before the arrival of TBC I yearned for the T5 wings, and I admit my eyes watered a bit when I finally got them. T6 had the hood and shoulders of justice, and currently Liore is strutting around in a T8 ninja mask, which is entirely pleasing.

Call me vain, call me shallow, but I like Liore to look good. And this.. this is not good.

And don’t give me that lame RP excuse nonsense that, “we’re in an army now, we have uniforms”. First, nice decision to suddenly plead realism as we JOUST our way to Arthas. Secondly, I have to spend enough time looking like everyone else in real life as part of the office worker army, thanks. I really don’t care to do that in a game. And finally.. Liore the elf character is an anti-authoritarian fabulously sassy priest, and she doesn’t wanna wear a uniform. Yeah, take that RP excuse.

You know what? I’m feeling stubborn and reactionary this morning, but I’m not doing it. I’m not going to take any T9, if I even go to the Colosseum at all. Hopefully there will be offset gear, and if there’s not then I’ll just heal the whole damn thing in my Ulduar gear, and I’ll still rock. I. Am not. A mage. I’m not even a caster! And I won’t even get started on how my DK friend feels about looking like a PALADIN. It’s not pretty.

3.2 in general is just making me nuts, although I’m trying to not think about it too much while everything is still in flux on the PTR. Why are they bringing out another raid instance so soon? It feels cheap and rushed, with us locked in a big empty room with a big empty monster, wearing identical clothes. (And yes, I know the spoiler for the end of the instance, but still.) Oh, and more priest nerfs. And multiple overcomplications of the raid lockout system.

Really, really not impressed.

/rant

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Raiding Ruminations, Random, WotLK gear, patch, priest, rants

Last night we broke into two 10 man groups (based on existing timers) and had a heck of a time. The group I was in already had most of the Keepers down, so we finished off Thorim and Mimiron and then two-shot Vezax! Three healers definitely helped. Then it was off to Yogg-Saron for the next couple of hours, which was okay by me. It was sooooooo nice to see him, even if he did eat our lunch.

We were also totally unprepared, strategy-wise, so it was an evening of moments like, “I wonder what these green beams do. Oh, I’m dead. Okay, avoid the green beams, people!”

Anyway, let’s get to the important bit: Liore looks awesome now. I feel I have finally arrived in WotLK tiered gear. I swore I’d never change her hair color, but Friday I got new shoulders, and new gloves last night, and I suppose Liore could DYE her hair temporarily, right?

Sure she could. Who’s a badass priest? Liore’s a badass priest. Awww, yeah.

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Random, WotLK gear, silly